Ur
The Ur are a species of parasitic life forms resembling a lamprey. The Ur are known by many names such as 'the masters' and 'the slavers'. The Ur on their own would be incapable of a civilization; they have no limbs, no capacity for speech, and their eye sight is poor. On their homeworld the Ur developed in deep lakes where they latched onto the craniums of large fish and gnawed into the skull. They used their long tongue to eat the frontal lob while nerves intertwined with other parts of the fish's brain granting the Ur full control of it's host. The Ur would then use the new body to hunt other life, and fend off other predators. The Ur's body would form a calcium shell binding it to the host with the two becoming one. The shell keeps the body moist using what it can gather from the host. At some point in their history the Ur attached to an amphibious sapient biped species on their homeworld and experienced an awakening due to the intertwining of nervous systems. As the Ur tell it they moved at first to co-exist with the amphibians but where met with gasps of horror and then with brutal force. Which began a long history of wars that eventually ended with the Ur as the victor. This set off the beginning of a highly xenophobic slave society built around a hierarchy of dominance. While slaves are at the bottom- used for labor and as hosts the Hierarchy accounts also for Ur who do not have a host being one position up from slave, followed by those with a host incapable of tool use, and then by those with a worthy host but no land to their name, and then those with a host and land. It's a very stratified authoritarian society where each position in the ladder owes to the next up. They refer to their realm as the Dominion though non-Ur have called it the 'Dominion of the Masters'. Reproduction While Ur typically identify as the sex of their host, and may indeed procreation to produce more 'hosts' in such form the species it's self should be noted as largely female. The lamprey like being that most see, the one that calcificates onto a host and eats it's frontal lobe- is female. The males are rather leech like and small; being unable to penetrate a cranium nor having the long tongue needed to feed upon brain matter. Males bind themselves to a female becoming something of a parasite to the parasite. Their nervous systems intertwine and the male's body attrifeeds to become mostly genitals with the male's mind becoming something of a voice in the female's head and being able to comprehends at least what's going on to a degree. Ur go to 'spawning pools' on the world's they inhabit where they submerge their body (though not their host's full body) into the surface water to release up to 200 eggs. These spawning pools are tended by a staff that fishes out males and females for sorting and keeps a food supply present in ideal conditions. Ur can apply to deposit eggs or join with a male here. Category:Science Fiction Setting of Baron Joshua